It is that time of year when children up and down the country start looking out for conkers, and about the time of year when schools start banning them from the playground. They are a sign that autumn is here and that winter is soon to follow. In recent years
From the Garden
It is often said that seventeenth-century men and women used plants that could be found in the garden or the hedgerow to make their own medicines. This sometimes provides a distorted picture of how easy it was to produce medicines in the kitchen at this time. Anne Stobart has reminded
Mince Pies and Pottage
A short while ago Sara and I headed to the 1620s house at Donington le Heath to whip up a seventeenth-century mice pie recipe, and accompanying pottage. We have blogged about mince pies before and the ways in which they became controversial in the eighteenth century, but this was our
A Diet for Old Age
Cake or Boiled Sparrow? by Amie Bolissian McRae Last week newspaper headlines urged the over-65s to ‘Eat butter and cakes to keep … healthy’.[i] The president of the British Association for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition, concerned about malnourishment in older people, advocated fat-rich foods such as cream, butter, and sweet
A Tom Cat’s Tail
James Woodforde was a rather ordinary man living in the eighteenth century. He was a Church of England clergyman working as a curate in Somerset before he was offered his own living in Norfolk in 1774.1 He has, however, been assured a place in history because he wrote a diary